http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090603101406.htm
ScienceDaily (June 2, 2009) — Men and women may not be from two different planets after all when it comes to choosiness in mate selection, according to new research from Northwestern University.
When women were assigned to the traditionally male role of approaching potential romantic partners, they were not any pickier than men in choosing that special someone to date, according to the speed dating study.
That finding, of course, is contrary to well established evolutionary explanations about mate selection. An abundance of such research suggests that women are influenced by higher reproductive costs (bearing and raising children) than men and thus are much choosier when it comes to love interests.
The new study is the latest research of two Northwestern psychologists whose well-reported work on speed dating offers unparalleled opportunities for studying romantic attraction in action.
Deviating from standard speed-dating experiments – and from the typical conventions at professional speed-dating events -- women in the study were required to go from man to man during their four-minute speed dates half the time, rather than always staying put. In most speed-dating events, the women stay in one place as the men circulate.
"The mere act of physically approaching a potential partner, versus being approached, seemed to increase desire for that partner," said Eli Finkel, associate professor of psychology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern and co-investigator of the study.
Regardless of gender, those who rotated experienced greater romantic desire for their partners, compared to those who sat throughout the event. The rotators, compared to the sitters, tended to have a greater interest in seeing their speed-dating partners again.
"Given that men generally are expected -- and sometimes required – to approach a potential love interest, the implications are intriguing," Finkel said.
"Let's face it, even today, there is a huge difference in terms of who is expected to walk across the bar to say 'hi,'" added Northwestern's Paul Eastwick, the study's other co-investigator.
Three hundred fifty undergraduates were recruited for the study's speed-dating events. In half of the events, the men rotated while the women sat. In the remaining events, the women rotated. Following each four-minute "date," the participants indicated their romantic desire in that partner and how self-confident they felt. Following the event, the students indicated on a Website whether they would or would not be interested in seeing each partner again.
When the men rotated, the results supported the long-held notion of men being less selective. When the women rotated, this robust sex difference disappeared.
The study draws upon embodiment research that suggests that physical actions alter perception. In one such study, for example, participants who were told to pull an unrelated object toward themselves while evaluating Chinese ideographs rated them as prettier than participants who pushed an unrelated object away from themselves while viewing the symbols.
"The embodiment research shows that our physical activity and psychological processes interface in ways that are outside our conscious awareness," Finkel said. "In conjunction with this previous embodiment research, our speed-dating results strongly suggest that the mere act of approaching a potential love interest can boost desire."
The researchers suggest that confidence also may have affected the results. Approaching a potential date increases confidence, which in turn makes the approacher less selective.
The study presents a clear example of how inconspicuous gender norms (having men rotate and women sit) can not only affect the outcome of a study, but also skew the chances of a speed dater walking away with a potential match.
"Our society is structured in gendered ways that can be subtle but very powerful," Eastwick concluded. The study has implications both for companies that capitalize on the business of dating and for researchers concerned with how social norms may affect research.
Showing posts with label body language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label body language. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Orangutans Communicate As If They Were Playing Charades
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070802091437.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 2, 2007) — When using gestures to get their points across, orangutans rely on the same basic strategy that humans follow when playing the popular game and intentionally modify or repeat hand (or other) signals based on the success or failure of their first attempt.
Professor Richard Byrne of the School of Psychology said, "We were surprised that the orangutans' responses so clearly signaled their assessment of the audience's comprehension. Looking at the tapes of the animal's responses, you can easily work out whether the orangutan thinks it has been fully, partially, or not understood, without seeing what went before."
"This means that, in effect, they are passing information back to the audience about how well they are doing in understanding them, hence our 'charades' analogy. In playing the game, you want primarily to convey your meaning non-verbally - as does the orangutan - but secondarily to help the team get your meaning by giving them hints as to how well they are doing."
To find out whether orangutans intentionally communicate with people through gestures - a skill earlier attributed to chimpanzees - PhD student Erica Cartmill and Professor Byrne presented six orangutans in Jersey and Twycross Zoos with situations in which one tempting and one not-so-tempting food item had to be reached with human help.
But to test the orangutans' strategy, there was a catch. Rather than play along all the time, the experimenter sometimes purposefully misunderstood the orangutan's requests, providing them with only half of the delicious treat in some cases and, in others, handing over the less pleasant alternative instead.
When the person they were trying to communicate with did not meet orangutans' aims, they persisted with further attempts, the researchers reported. When partially understood, the animals narrowed down their range of signals, focusing on gestures already used and repeating them frequently. In contrast, when completely misunderstood, orangutans elaborated their range of gestures, avoiding repetition of 'failed' signals.
"The response showed that the orangutan had intended a particular result, anticipated getting it, and kept trying until it got the result," Cartmill said. "The orangutans made a clear distinction between total misunderstanding, when they tended to give up on the signals they'd used already, and use new, but equivalent, ones to get the idea across, and partial misunderstanding, when they tended to repeat the signals that had already partially worked, keeping at it with vigor. The result was that understanding could be achieved more quickly."
The orangutans' charades-like strategy is one way to construct shared meaning from learned or ritualised signals in the absence of language, the researchers concluded. Further investigation of communication among apes may therefore provide insight into the pre-linguistic devices that helped construct the very earliest forms of hominid language.
The findings are published in Current Biology (2 August 2007).
ScienceDaily (Aug. 2, 2007) — When using gestures to get their points across, orangutans rely on the same basic strategy that humans follow when playing the popular game and intentionally modify or repeat hand (or other) signals based on the success or failure of their first attempt.
Professor Richard Byrne of the School of Psychology said, "We were surprised that the orangutans' responses so clearly signaled their assessment of the audience's comprehension. Looking at the tapes of the animal's responses, you can easily work out whether the orangutan thinks it has been fully, partially, or not understood, without seeing what went before."
"This means that, in effect, they are passing information back to the audience about how well they are doing in understanding them, hence our 'charades' analogy. In playing the game, you want primarily to convey your meaning non-verbally - as does the orangutan - but secondarily to help the team get your meaning by giving them hints as to how well they are doing."
To find out whether orangutans intentionally communicate with people through gestures - a skill earlier attributed to chimpanzees - PhD student Erica Cartmill and Professor Byrne presented six orangutans in Jersey and Twycross Zoos with situations in which one tempting and one not-so-tempting food item had to be reached with human help.
But to test the orangutans' strategy, there was a catch. Rather than play along all the time, the experimenter sometimes purposefully misunderstood the orangutan's requests, providing them with only half of the delicious treat in some cases and, in others, handing over the less pleasant alternative instead.
When the person they were trying to communicate with did not meet orangutans' aims, they persisted with further attempts, the researchers reported. When partially understood, the animals narrowed down their range of signals, focusing on gestures already used and repeating them frequently. In contrast, when completely misunderstood, orangutans elaborated their range of gestures, avoiding repetition of 'failed' signals.
"The response showed that the orangutan had intended a particular result, anticipated getting it, and kept trying until it got the result," Cartmill said. "The orangutans made a clear distinction between total misunderstanding, when they tended to give up on the signals they'd used already, and use new, but equivalent, ones to get the idea across, and partial misunderstanding, when they tended to repeat the signals that had already partially worked, keeping at it with vigor. The result was that understanding could be achieved more quickly."
The orangutans' charades-like strategy is one way to construct shared meaning from learned or ritualised signals in the absence of language, the researchers concluded. Further investigation of communication among apes may therefore provide insight into the pre-linguistic devices that helped construct the very earliest forms of hominid language.
The findings are published in Current Biology (2 August 2007).
Ape Gestures Offer Clues To The Evolution Of Human Communication
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070430181209.htm
ScienceDaily (May 1, 2007) — Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, have found bonobos and chimpanzees use manual gestures of their hands, feet and limbs more flexibly than they do facial expressions and vocalizations, further supporting the evolution of human language began with gestures as the gestural origin hypothesis of language suggests. This study appears in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Working with two groups of bonobos (13 animals) and two groups of chimpanzees (34 animals), Yerkes researchers Amy Pollick, PhD, and Frans de Waal, PhD, distinguished 31 manual gestures and 18 facial/vocal signals. They found both species used facial/vocal signals similarly, but the same did not hold true for the manual gestures. Rather, the researchers found both within and between species the manual gestures were less closely tied to a particular emotion and, thereby, serve a more adaptable function. For example, a single gesture may communicate an entirely different message depending upon the social context in which it is used.
"A chimpanzee may stretch out an open hand to another as a signal for support, whereas the same gesture toward a possessor of food signals a desire to share," said Pollick. "A scream, however, is a typical response for victims of intimidation, threat or attack. This is so for both bonobos and chimpanzees, and suggests the vocalization is relatively invariant," Pollick continued.
By studying similar types of communication in closely related species, researchers are able to determine shared ancestry. We know gestures are evolutionarily younger than facial expressions and vocalizations, as shown by their presence in apes and humans but not in monkeys. "A gesture that occurs in bonobos and chimpanzees as well as humans likely was present in the last common ancestor," said Pollick. "A good example of a shared gesture is the open-hand begging gesture, used by both apes and humans. This gesture can be used for food, if there is food around, but it also can be used to beg for help, for support, for money and so on. It's meaning is context-dependent," added de Waal.
Looking for further distinctions between species, the researchers found bonobos use gestures more flexibly than do chimpanzees. "Different groups of bonobos used gestures in specific contexts less consistently than did different groups of chimpanzees," said Pollick. The researcher's findings also suggest bonobos and chimpanzees engage in multi-modal communication, combining their gestures with facial expressions and vocalizations to communicate a message. "While chimpanzees produce more of these combinations, bonobos respond to them more often. This finding suggests the bonobo is a better model of symbolic communication in our early ancestors," concluded Pollick.
ScienceDaily (May 1, 2007) — Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, have found bonobos and chimpanzees use manual gestures of their hands, feet and limbs more flexibly than they do facial expressions and vocalizations, further supporting the evolution of human language began with gestures as the gestural origin hypothesis of language suggests. This study appears in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Working with two groups of bonobos (13 animals) and two groups of chimpanzees (34 animals), Yerkes researchers Amy Pollick, PhD, and Frans de Waal, PhD, distinguished 31 manual gestures and 18 facial/vocal signals. They found both species used facial/vocal signals similarly, but the same did not hold true for the manual gestures. Rather, the researchers found both within and between species the manual gestures were less closely tied to a particular emotion and, thereby, serve a more adaptable function. For example, a single gesture may communicate an entirely different message depending upon the social context in which it is used.
"A chimpanzee may stretch out an open hand to another as a signal for support, whereas the same gesture toward a possessor of food signals a desire to share," said Pollick. "A scream, however, is a typical response for victims of intimidation, threat or attack. This is so for both bonobos and chimpanzees, and suggests the vocalization is relatively invariant," Pollick continued.
By studying similar types of communication in closely related species, researchers are able to determine shared ancestry. We know gestures are evolutionarily younger than facial expressions and vocalizations, as shown by their presence in apes and humans but not in monkeys. "A gesture that occurs in bonobos and chimpanzees as well as humans likely was present in the last common ancestor," said Pollick. "A good example of a shared gesture is the open-hand begging gesture, used by both apes and humans. This gesture can be used for food, if there is food around, but it also can be used to beg for help, for support, for money and so on. It's meaning is context-dependent," added de Waal.
Looking for further distinctions between species, the researchers found bonobos use gestures more flexibly than do chimpanzees. "Different groups of bonobos used gestures in specific contexts less consistently than did different groups of chimpanzees," said Pollick. The researcher's findings also suggest bonobos and chimpanzees engage in multi-modal communication, combining their gestures with facial expressions and vocalizations to communicate a message. "While chimpanzees produce more of these combinations, bonobos respond to them more often. This finding suggests the bonobo is a better model of symbolic communication in our early ancestors," concluded Pollick.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Rich Man, Poor Man: Body Language Can Indicate Socioeconomic Status, Study Shows
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090204121515.htm
ScienceDaily (Feb. 5, 2009) — Socioeconomic status (SES) is determined by a number of factors such as wealth, occupation and schools attended. SES influences the food we eat, hobbies we participate in and can even have an impact on our health.
People with an upper SES background can often be accused of flaunting their status, such as by the types of cars they drive or how many pairs of Manolo Blahniks they have in their closet. It is easy to guess someone's SES based on their clothing and the size of their home, but what about more subtle clues? Psychologists Michael W. Kraus and Dacher Keltner of the University of California, Berkeley wanted to see if non-verbal cues (that is, body language) can indicate our SES.
To test this idea, the researchers videotaped participants as they got to know one another in one-on-one interview sessions. During these taped sessions, the researchers looked for two types of behaviors: disengagement behaviors (including fidgeting with personal objects and doodling) and engagement behaviors (including head nodding, laughing and eye contact).
The results, reported in Psychological Science, reveal that nonverbal cues can give away a person's SES. Volunteers whose parents were from upper SES backgrounds displayed more disengagement-related behaviors compared to participants from lower SES backgrounds. In addition, when a separate group of observers were shown 60 second clips of the videos, they were able to correctly guess the participants' SES background, based on their body language.
The researchers note that this is the first study to show a relation between SES and social engagement behavior. They surmise that people from upper SES backgrounds who are wealthy and have access to prestigious institutions tend to be less dependent on others. "This lack of dependence among upper SES people is displayed in their nonverbal behaviors during social interactions," the psychologists conclude.
Journal reference:
Kraus et al. Signs of Socioeconomic Status: A Thin-Slicing Approach. Psychological Science, 2009; 20 (1): 99 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02251.x
I think it's not only interesting that we unconsciously (maybe even consciously) portray our SES by body language, but that the participants were able to correctly identify their standing with 100 percent accuracy. I can see how it would be beneficial to show a wealthy status but to also evolve to pick up on those cues. Also their conclusion makes a lot of sense as well, why would you need to keep broadening your social circle if you don't need more support? It's actually probably a hindrance to keep attracting more people who may need your resources. I can see the good side and bad side of advertising your SES, and this study helps support the idea that it's more beneficial to display it.
ScienceDaily (Feb. 5, 2009) — Socioeconomic status (SES) is determined by a number of factors such as wealth, occupation and schools attended. SES influences the food we eat, hobbies we participate in and can even have an impact on our health.
People with an upper SES background can often be accused of flaunting their status, such as by the types of cars they drive or how many pairs of Manolo Blahniks they have in their closet. It is easy to guess someone's SES based on their clothing and the size of their home, but what about more subtle clues? Psychologists Michael W. Kraus and Dacher Keltner of the University of California, Berkeley wanted to see if non-verbal cues (that is, body language) can indicate our SES.
To test this idea, the researchers videotaped participants as they got to know one another in one-on-one interview sessions. During these taped sessions, the researchers looked for two types of behaviors: disengagement behaviors (including fidgeting with personal objects and doodling) and engagement behaviors (including head nodding, laughing and eye contact).
The results, reported in Psychological Science, reveal that nonverbal cues can give away a person's SES. Volunteers whose parents were from upper SES backgrounds displayed more disengagement-related behaviors compared to participants from lower SES backgrounds. In addition, when a separate group of observers were shown 60 second clips of the videos, they were able to correctly guess the participants' SES background, based on their body language.
The researchers note that this is the first study to show a relation between SES and social engagement behavior. They surmise that people from upper SES backgrounds who are wealthy and have access to prestigious institutions tend to be less dependent on others. "This lack of dependence among upper SES people is displayed in their nonverbal behaviors during social interactions," the psychologists conclude.
Journal reference:
Kraus et al. Signs of Socioeconomic Status: A Thin-Slicing Approach. Psychological Science, 2009; 20 (1): 99 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02251.x
I think it's not only interesting that we unconsciously (maybe even consciously) portray our SES by body language, but that the participants were able to correctly identify their standing with 100 percent accuracy. I can see how it would be beneficial to show a wealthy status but to also evolve to pick up on those cues. Also their conclusion makes a lot of sense as well, why would you need to keep broadening your social circle if you don't need more support? It's actually probably a hindrance to keep attracting more people who may need your resources. I can see the good side and bad side of advertising your SES, and this study helps support the idea that it's more beneficial to display it.
Psychologists Find That Head Movement Is More Important Than Gender In Nonverbal Communication
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090525105459.htm
ScienceDaily (May 26, 2009) — It is well known that people use head motion during conversation to convey a range of meanings and emotions, and that women use more active head motion when conversing with each other than men use when they talk with each other.
When men and women converse together, the men use a little more head motion and the women use a little less. But the men and women might be adapting because of their gender-based expectations or because of the movements they perceive from each other.
What would happen if you could change the apparent gender of a conversant while keeping all of the motion dynamics of head movement and facial expression?
Using new videoconferencing technology, a team of psychologists and computer scientists – led by Steven Boker, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia – were able to switch the apparent gender of study participants during conversation and found that head motion was more important than gender in determining how people coordinate with each other while engaging in conversation.
The scientists found that gender-based social expectations are unlikely to be the source of reported gender differences in the way people coordinate their head movements during two-way conversation.
The researchers used synthesized faces – known as avatars – in video-conferences with naïve participants, who believed they were conversing onscreen with an actual person rather than a synthetic version of a person.
In some conversations, the researchers changed the gender of the avatars and the vocal pitch of the avatar's voice – while still maintaining their actual head movements and facial expressions – convincing naïve participants that they were speaking with, for example, a male when they were in fact speaking with a female, or vice versa.
"We found that people simply adapt to each other's head movements and facial expressions, regardless of the apparent sex of the person they are talking to," Boker said. "This is important because it indicates that how you appear is less important than how you move when it comes to what other people feel when they speak with you."
He presented the findings May 24 at the annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science in San Francisco. A paper detailing the results is scheduled for publication in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
The study, funded by the National Science Foundation, used a low-bandwidth, high-frame-rate videoconferencing technology to record and recreate facial expressions to see how people alter their behavior based on the slightest changes in expression of another person. The U.Va.-based team also includes researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, University of East Anglia, Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research.
A video demonstration is available online at: http://faculty.virginia.edu/humandynamicslab/.
The technology uses statistical representations of a person's face to track and reconstruct that face. This allows the principal components of facial expression – only dozens in number – to be transmitted as a close rendition of the actual face. It's a sort of connect-the-dots fabrication that can be transmitted frame by frame in near-real time.
Boker and his team are trying to understand how people interact during conversation, and how factors such as gender or race may alter the dynamics of a conversation. To do so, they needed a way to capture facial expressions people use when conversing.
"From a psychological standpoint, our interest is in how people interact and how they coordinate their facial expressions as they talk with one another, such as when one person nods while speaking, or listening, the other person likewise nods," Boker said.
It is this "mirroring process" of coordination that helps people to feel a connection with each other.
"When I coordinate my facial expressions or head movements with yours, I activate a system that helps me empathize with your feelings," Boker said.
The technology the team developed further allows them to map the facial expressions of one person onto the face of another in a real time videoconference. In this way they can change the apparent gender or race of a participant and closely track how a naïve participant reacts when speaking to a woman, say, as opposed to a man.
"In this way we can distinguish between how people coordinate their facial expressions and what their social expectation is," Boker said.
This is absolutely amazing to me that we are so intuned to head motion that we can be tricked into perceiving another gender. I guess this exists because the more intuned you are the better your social relations are and therfore are more likely to survive.
ScienceDaily (May 26, 2009) — It is well known that people use head motion during conversation to convey a range of meanings and emotions, and that women use more active head motion when conversing with each other than men use when they talk with each other.
When men and women converse together, the men use a little more head motion and the women use a little less. But the men and women might be adapting because of their gender-based expectations or because of the movements they perceive from each other.
What would happen if you could change the apparent gender of a conversant while keeping all of the motion dynamics of head movement and facial expression?
Using new videoconferencing technology, a team of psychologists and computer scientists – led by Steven Boker, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia – were able to switch the apparent gender of study participants during conversation and found that head motion was more important than gender in determining how people coordinate with each other while engaging in conversation.
The scientists found that gender-based social expectations are unlikely to be the source of reported gender differences in the way people coordinate their head movements during two-way conversation.
The researchers used synthesized faces – known as avatars – in video-conferences with naïve participants, who believed they were conversing onscreen with an actual person rather than a synthetic version of a person.
In some conversations, the researchers changed the gender of the avatars and the vocal pitch of the avatar's voice – while still maintaining their actual head movements and facial expressions – convincing naïve participants that they were speaking with, for example, a male when they were in fact speaking with a female, or vice versa.
"We found that people simply adapt to each other's head movements and facial expressions, regardless of the apparent sex of the person they are talking to," Boker said. "This is important because it indicates that how you appear is less important than how you move when it comes to what other people feel when they speak with you."
He presented the findings May 24 at the annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science in San Francisco. A paper detailing the results is scheduled for publication in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
The study, funded by the National Science Foundation, used a low-bandwidth, high-frame-rate videoconferencing technology to record and recreate facial expressions to see how people alter their behavior based on the slightest changes in expression of another person. The U.Va.-based team also includes researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, University of East Anglia, Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research.
A video demonstration is available online at: http://faculty.virginia.edu/humandynamicslab/.
The technology uses statistical representations of a person's face to track and reconstruct that face. This allows the principal components of facial expression – only dozens in number – to be transmitted as a close rendition of the actual face. It's a sort of connect-the-dots fabrication that can be transmitted frame by frame in near-real time.
Boker and his team are trying to understand how people interact during conversation, and how factors such as gender or race may alter the dynamics of a conversation. To do so, they needed a way to capture facial expressions people use when conversing.
"From a psychological standpoint, our interest is in how people interact and how they coordinate their facial expressions as they talk with one another, such as when one person nods while speaking, or listening, the other person likewise nods," Boker said.
It is this "mirroring process" of coordination that helps people to feel a connection with each other.
"When I coordinate my facial expressions or head movements with yours, I activate a system that helps me empathize with your feelings," Boker said.
The technology the team developed further allows them to map the facial expressions of one person onto the face of another in a real time videoconference. In this way they can change the apparent gender or race of a participant and closely track how a naïve participant reacts when speaking to a woman, say, as opposed to a man.
"In this way we can distinguish between how people coordinate their facial expressions and what their social expectation is," Boker said.
This is absolutely amazing to me that we are so intuned to head motion that we can be tricked into perceiving another gender. I guess this exists because the more intuned you are the better your social relations are and therfore are more likely to survive.
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